SOURCE: Carabine, Keith. “‘Gestures’ and ‘The Moral Satirical Idea’ in Conrad's ‘The Informer.’” Conradiana: A Journal of Joseph Conrad Studies 31, no. 1 (spring 1999): 26-41.

In the following essay, Carabine examines the relationship between form and idea in “The Informer.”

In January, 1908, in response to Algernon Methuen's request for “a general definition of the stories” that he could use to advertise the forthcoming A Set of Six Conrad wrote:¹

All the stories are stories of incident—action—not of analysis. All are dramatic in a measure but by no means of the gloomy sort. All, but two, draw their significance from the love interest—though of course they are not love stories in the conventional meaning. They are not studies—they touch no problem. They are just stories in which I've tried my best to be simply entertaining.

(CL4, 29-30)

Conrad's “general definition” is full of embarrassed negations and qualifications...